


Just Take What You Need

by litsasecret



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), StarCraft
Genre: Drug Use, M/M, alternate universe- fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-19
Updated: 2010-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-11 17:08:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/litsasecret/pseuds/litsasecret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy is a dancer in a cantina on Korhal. Adam has been newly hired as a singer. They're both a little broken, but aren't all Terrans?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Take What You Need

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the StarCraft universe sometime after the events of StarCraft: BroodWar. I wrote this after my friend misread SUV as SCV in a different fic I was writing.
> 
> Warning: Contains some anti-Dominion sentiment. Also, I am probably only passingly familiar with the canon. Diablo is more my thing, TBH.

The first Tommy heard of Adam was that he'd been involved, somehow, with the war. He'd expected some sort of war-scarred, pro-Confederacy vet with a chip on his shoulder.

What he'd seen, the first time he'd worked a shift with the guy, was a beautiful man who probably could have made his living with his body, the way Tommy did, if he hadn't had a voice. Too bad he had a voice, Tommy thought.

On the other hand, Tommy liked his job. It was the only one he had, after all, and rent was expensive these days, with unsettled refugees still thronging the streets of the few untouched worlds. Not that Korhal was exactly untouched, but it was poisoned with radiation, not the persistent filth of the Zerg. So maybe it was a good thing Adam wasn't competing with him over it.

During their break, Tommy sidled over to Adam, who was drinking water like he was dying, and hunching in on himself at the attention of the other bar patrons. Tommy leered at a woman who'd grabbed his ass, rubbed up a little for show against an off-duty military man of some caliber, and finally melted onto a stool next to Adam.

"Hi," he said, leaning in and looking up from under his lashes at the man.

Adam flinched, literally, from the greeting, making a visible effort to control himself before looking at Tommy. His eyes, a stark, empty silver-gray, unnerved Tommy. Okay, so maybe not a Marine, but he could have been a Ghost or something, with eyes like that.

"You should go somewhere else," Adam said curtly, then turned back to his water.

"Nah," Tommy said easily. "You're new, you'll get eaten alive over here by yourself. Thursday nights, everyone's frisky."

Adam shrugged his shoulders, an exaggerated gesture that really accentuated how much clothing Adam was wearing. Tommy himself was wearing just enough to follow public decency laws, and the bar liked it that way. He was a little surprised Adam was getting away with his current attire, but that wasn't really his business.

As if in response to his thoughts, a beautiful man in Dominion Fleet uniform leaned across Tommy, one hand drifting to his nipple, the other to his crotch, a decisive leer on his face.

"Aww, sorry Adam, that's my cue to leave," Tommy said, getting up to follow the man. Just because he was on break didn't mean he couldn't work, for sure.

When he came back in, a couple minutes later than he should have, he slipped 20 credits to his manager and went back to his stage. Adam gave him a really thorough once over, and for the first time in a long time, he was embarrassed to be naked.

It was stupid-- not like his parents were alive to be ashamed of him, not like he had any other skills to sell but farming, and who the fuck farmed anymore? Crazy people and desperate people. He was neither, and with a job and a home (however many people he had to share it with) he wasn't about to try to go back home and risk having to pick right up again and come back.

Nobody trusted Mengsk that the Zerg were gone for good anyway; Protoss freaks and UED assholes aside, of course.

Adam's eyes flicked away after a moment, and his voice joined with the tinny, too-compressed music from the speakers, and Tommy allowed it to overwhelm him, shimmying around the stage and grinning as people slid credit slips into the slots below the stage and bought more drinks. Thursday was a good night to work, and he'd had to fight tooth and nail to get it.

He wasn't gonna let a weirdo with a good voice screw that up for him, for certain.

He sashayed over to where Adam was singing, curling his hands over the other man's shoulders, lining up for an impromptu lapdance. There was something-- odd about his shoulders, a familiar-strange artificial hardness, and Adam's eyes flashed dark and intimidating at him, but the crowd was jeering him on, so Tommy sank low into a crouch, then a backbend, undulating with the music and Adam's voice, already imagining the high from the stimpacks he could get off the street with tonight's tips.

Adam nudged him between the legs with a booted foot, and Tommy finally took the hint to leave, winking at the crowd as he went back to his end of the stage, letting the music carry him the rest of the evening.

After the bar closed, he let a blonde woman with too many piercings take him out back, and he charged her extra. He knew she'd pay, and his manager'd never find out, and rent _was_ due soon.

When he came out of the alley, shoes quiet against the steel of the walkway, Adam was right there, watching the entrance like a hawk.

Tommy glared at him. He didn't sell to co-workers, because that was just stupid.

"Try the Doll's House, east a couple blocks," he said curtly, wrapping his coat around his body firmly, protectively.

"Not what I'm looking for," Adam said cryptically, carefully matching his step to Tommy's.

"I don't sell to colleagues," Tommy said outright, trying to walk faster, but Adam just lengthened his pace a little bit, keeping up easily.

"Not what I'm looking for," Adam said again, with exactly the same inflection.

Tommy didn't want this guy following him home, not when he didn't know him, not when he couldn't read him. The last thing he needed was to bring trouble right up to his door. He had his roommates to think about.

"Look," he said angrily. "I don't know what you want, but you need to go now. I don't want you around, got it?"

"Didn't seem that way earlier," Adam said.

"Don't be stupid! That was for the crowd! You get 30 percent of the tips, and you don't _get_ that?"

Tommy found himself shoved against a wall, abrupt and painful. The ridged steel dug into his back and he blinked back tears.

"Okay," he whispered. "Please don't hurt me, okay? I just... I'll do whatever, but don't hurt me, I can't... if I get too hurt I can't work and I need the money, please,"

"Then why did you go back there with her?" Adam demanded, voice raspy.

"Because I need the money!" Tommy defended, kicking out suddenly, trying to catch Adam off guard. Adam barely reacted, like he hadn't felt the kick at all.

"But not from me."

Tommy shook his head and closed his eyes. "If you're gonna do it, just-- do it? Please? I need to get home, I--"

Tommy was suddenly released. He opened his eyes in time to see Adam backing away, eyes wide with horror and disgust, hands up like surrender. Then Adam turned and ran, and Tommy was left reeling. What the _hell_ had just happened?

The next night, he'd be sharing the stage with Brooke as well as Adam, and he hadn't slept the night before. He dug through his locker for his stash; he exhaled with relief as the drugs and hormones flooded his system, making everything slow down and making his blood burn with lust.

Adam stared at Tommy's throat with greed and fear, which was really odd, but Tommy was too busy using Brooke as a makeshift pole to think about it.

At the break, instead of letting Tommy go and make nice with the patrons, Adam dragged Tommy to the back, rubbing Tommy's throat where he knew a faint red mark remained from his prep earlier.

"Where did-- can I-- oh, I need," Adam said, his eyes glittering with need.

Tommy shook his head. "No way am I getting anyone else addicted," he started, because just because he'd been on the streets too long and gotten _himself_ hooked didn't mean he didn't have standards. Then Adam growled, shoving Tommy away and wrenching open his locker to rifle through his things. Tommy knew the stimpacks had been found by the triumphant look on Adam's face when he withdrew his fist.

Adam dosed up with ease of long practice, and his pupils dilated almost instantly. He turned on Tommy, kissing him adamantly, shoving him to the floor and grinding against him with abandon. "Oh, by the..."

Tommy tried to push Adam off, but only got his hands shoved over his head and restrained in Adam's fist for his effort. "Got ten minutes," Adam pointed out between possessive, overwhelming kisses.

Tommy resigned himself to his fate. After all, he'd avoided it so narrowly last night, how could he think it would be over?

He went completely limp, letting Adam manhandle him however he pleased. For some reason, that made Adam stop. "What's wrong?"

Tommy gave him an incredulous look. "What's _wrong?_" he asked.

"You had a stimpack too, I saw, you should-- aren't you-- why don't you _want?_"

Tommy didn't have the words to explain. How could this man not realize that _wanting_ and wanting _someone_ were two different things. "I don't have sex high," he settled on, surprised how blunt his tone was, when he felt so thready and breathless.

"High?" Adam asked, sitting back a little.

"On the stimpacks," Tommy clarified.

"I don't understand." Adam shook his head.

"You're not gonna be up to understanding for a couple hours either," Tommy said.

"Less." Adam sat back on his heels.

"How long have you been doing them?" Tommy asked, a little awed. They'd been designed so you wouldn't get a tolerance for them for years and years of use. They were for the military, after all.

"15 years," Adam said, quiet.

And, oh yeah, they'd _said_ Adam'd been involved with the war.

Tommy breathed out a little "oh" of surprise, then he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Adam, tight. He felt tiny against Adam, even initiating the contact. Adam turned his head and inhaled the scent of Tommy's hair. Tommy was glad he'd used up his water ration last night to scrub clean, even if it had been Adam's touch he'd been scrubbing off.

He let a scuzzy lawyer take him out back tonight, taking his money gleefully, sinking to his knees gracefully.

He wasn't surprised to find Adam waiting for him at the mouth of the alley, and he was perversely grateful for the glare from Adam that sent the lawyer scurrying away. Tommy offered some of the crumpled credit slips to Adam, but Adam just gave him a confused look.

Tommy shrugged and stuffed them down his pants and buttoned his coat.

"You said you don't understand about not having sex while you're high?"

"I don't understand what you mean by high," he said.

"Where are you _from_?" Tommy demanded incredulously.

"Here," Adam said, soft voice belying the import of the word. Because _nobody_ was from Korhal. The Confederacy had nuked the hell out of it, and almost everyone had died save a few ships full of refugees, all of whom had ended up in Mengsk's trusted covey of advisors and sycophants.

Well, most of them. The war's over, you lost, was the consensus. The least of so many evils had won, as far as most people were concerned, but there had been a very very few who'd disagreed. He looked at Adam, and his blank expression and defeated posture, and he wondered.

"You should be on Mar Sara or something," Tommy said, hoping the comment wouldn't be seen as criticism.

"No; it took me too long to realize."

Tommy bumped his shoulder against Adam's. "Took most of us too long, I think."

It was as close to overt treason as he'd ever come; the high was better than anything a stimpack could bring.

Adam looked down at him, his eyes as close to alive as he'd seen them.

"Do you want me to come home with you?" Tommy asked impulsively.

"I don't-- I'm saving for first month's rent."

Tommy glared at him from under his bangs. "If you'd said _that_ last night, I'd have taken you home."

Adam ducked his head. "I think things, and it doesn't work out right between my brain and my body," he admitted.

"Well, duh," Tommy said.

Adam smiled, a glowing grin that overwhelmed his face, and made Tommy want to bring that smile out every chance he could. He was _caught_ and he found he didn't mind much.

"Alright," Tommy said, a half-smile of his own on his lips. "Let's go home, Adam."

Adam ducked his head and took Tommy's hand. "Thank you," he whispered.


End file.
